


Private Lessons

by I_Am_Your_Dentist



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: AU, Broh, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:06:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Am_Your_Dentist/pseuds/I_Am_Your_Dentist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bolin has a little crush on his history teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Private Lessons

The history classroom door opened with a soft click as the teacher, Iroh, finally entered for his seventh period class. "Good morning, everyone. Today, we're going to talk about the impact the Great Nation War had on the modern world…"  Bolin sighed as he glanced up from doodling in his notes, catching a glimpse of Iroh's long eyelashes as he turned toward the blackboard. He grinned goofily as he stared at the older man's broad back. He loved Mr. Hotman's class…of course, that wasn't his real name, just what Bolin and his friends called him in private. It was accurate enough. His history teacher had been the star of his wet dreams and fap sessions for going on two years now. He was famous amongst the students; even his best friend, Asami, had the hots for him.

The teenager often let himself drift off while Iroh talked. He liked the honeyed sound of the older man's voice, the way it seemed to resonate through him like a drum. Often, his thoughts turned to what that voice would sound like in the throes of passion...of course, his only experience with that being porno, he had to hope it wouldn't be nearly as cheesy. Somehow, he suspected that with Iroh being involved, it wouldn't be cheesy at all. He imagined the older teacher breathily moaning his name, and sighed along with it, trying to keep his excitement down. He always seemed to play this cat and mouse game with himself whenever Mr. Hotman was around.

  "Pst! Bo!" Bolin was snapped out of his daydream by a pencil stabbing him in the back. He started and looked up, only to find the object of his imagination staring at him.

  "Well, Mr. Bei Fong?"

  "Uhhhh…" Bolin's eyes darted around the room frantically. He hadn't heard the question. "I…I don't know?"  

"Hmm. Tahno?"  

"Of course, the Great War ended in 1882 when Aang the Great defeated the dictator Ozai."

  "Correct." Iroh turned back to the blackboard as Bolin sank shamefully in his seat. He saw the sympathetic glance from his other best friend, Korra, from across the room, while Asami giggled behind him. So embarassing...and shown up by Tahno, no less. That smug little bastard. Bolin shot him a glare, but he wasn't even paying attention.  

"Daydreaming about Mr. Hotman again?" Bolin's face flushed and he sunk even lower at Asami's words whispered in his ear. Of course she knew. All his friends knew his fantasies about Iroh. Then again, with how obvious he was about it, he'd be hard pressed to keep it any sort of secret.  

"Shut up…" Bolin stayed like that until the end of class, sunk down in his seat as if trying to disappear from the class entirely. When the ball rang, he jumped up, gathered his things, and eagerly tried to follow Korra and Asami. He just wanted to go home and wallow in his shame. But...

  "Bolin, I'd like to have a word with you before you leave." The teenager froze, just inches from freedom, then shamefully shuffled back inside. He shut the door behind him, and it made a resounding click that made him wince. It sounded very ominous in the small, quiet room.   The teacher sighed, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. This action only served to accentuate his crazy large muscles, a fact which Bolin did not fail to notice.  

"Bolin." Though Iroh's tone was gentle, the teenager snapped to attention like a scolded military cadet. "You need to start paying attention in class. You don't finish your homework, your test scores are average at best, and right now you're looking at a zero for class participation." The older man's golden eyes burned into his, disappointment brimming within their fiery depths. "I know you're a smart young man. You're getting all A's in your other classes. Why are you having so much trouble in mine?"  

Because every time I even think of doing work for your class, I think of you and it turns into a jerk-off session, Bolin silently answered. Of course, he couldn't really say that, so he just shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, "I guess I'm just not good at History…"  

"Bolin, I do not want you to have to retake this class again next year." The teenager didn't think that was such a bad idea, but of course didn't say that out loud. "If you'd like some extra help, I suppose I can offer you a few private lessons." He turned away to reach into his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. He scribbled something on it and handed it to the younger boy. "Have your guardian sign this and bring it back to me before this weekend."

  Bolin was speechless as he took the paper. Private tutoring? From Hotman? His head was swimming as he stammered a quick "goodbye" and ran off to his locker. He wasn't sure how to feel about this situation at all.

  Korra and Asami were waiting for him by his locker, chatting as they waited for him, backpacks at their feet all packed up and ready to go. Bolin pointedly ignored him as he opened his locker and began packing up his own stuff. That was easy enough when he still felt like he was on a roller-coaster of emotion.  

"So…did Hotman let you have it?" Korra asked, slapping him on the back. He shook his head slowly, bewildered.  

"N-no, he…he wanted to give me some private lessons."

  "Ew. Like…Tahno's 'private lessons'?" Tahno, that jerk. He was captain of the swim team, and had hit on Korra more than once with that line. Of course, since she was already dating Bolin's older brother, she had not-so-kindly turned down the offer. And by not-so-kindly, he meant a swift kick in the balls resulting in a two-day suspension. According to her, it had been worth it.  

"No, like tutoring, geez, Korra…"  

"I think it's sweet," Asami said with a broad smile. A well-manicured hand squeezed his shoulder. "Hey, this is your chance to tell him how you feel, Bo!"

  "What? No, no it's not!" Bolin slammed his locker shut with a grimace. "I don't even know if I'm going to go. I can barely stand to think of the guy, how can I be all alone in a room with him? Besides, if I tell Lin I'm failing a class, she'll kill me. You know how strict she is about my grades."  

"So forge her signature," Korra said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Look, I'm good at that kind of stuff, let me do it. Then you're free to go on your date with Hotman."

  "It's not a date! Korra…"  

"Fine. Your…'private lessons.'" She smirked. "Come on. You know you wanna go."

  "I agree, Bo. Whether you like it or not, you do need to pick up your grade."

"Yeah, well...whatever! I'll do some independent studying! But no way am I going to Hotman's house!" Now that the shock had worn off, just the thought of being alone with Iroh made his nerves jangle so much he literally shook. That was a situation he didn't want to put   
himself in. He was happy in his little comfort zone, admiring the older teacher from afar and never doing anything about it.

"Alright, alright, you don't have to go," Korra sighed. "You let me know when you change your mind."

They parted ways, and Bolin walked the short way home by himself. It gave him some time to think, but just further cemented his decision not to go. He just wanted to go up to his room and wallow in his shame for the day, especially this icing on the cake. Unfortunately, when he arrived home, his adoptive mother, Lin, caught him as he was trying to sneak upstairs.

  "Mako called," she said simply, handing him the phone. Nobody could say she was a particularly loving person, but Bolin liked it that way. In the foster homes he'd spent much of his childhood in, the parents would often smother him with affection. He didn't like that. It was just a constant reminder that his own parents, who had not been particularly affectionate themselves, were dead and gone. He didn't need to be smothered by Lin to know she cared. Their relationship worked just fine as it was.  

He decide to call his brother back before getting to work on his homework, dialing the number of Mako's dorm room, each decimal burned into his memory with the certainty that could only come from repetition.  The phone rang once, twice, then a sleepy voice said, "Hello?"  

Bolin grinned. Hearing his brother's voice always made him feel at peace. "Hey, Mako. Lin said you called."  

"Bo?" Bolin heard a short scuffling. "Uh, hey…what's up?

"  "I'll have you know it's three PM," the teenager said with a laugh. "I get up at seven every day, you don't see me lazing off in the middle of the afternoon."  

"Bite me, I was up late."  "Uh huh. On the phone with Korra." A pause. Of course, he was right. Korra had told him herself at school that morning. For some reason, she herself was full of energy, even though she had to get up way earlier than Mako did. One of the mysteries that was Korra, he supposed. There was a short silence where Bolin waited for Mako to talk. His older brother wasn't the most talkative person in the world, something he was genuinely grateful for right now.

"Hey, Mako, um...there's something I want to talk to you about."

  "Hmm?" The sound of a yawn. "Sure, bro, anything. What's on your mind?"

  "Well, do you remember that teacher I told you about…?" he started awkwardly.

  "Do not tell me you still have a crush on him," Mako deadpanned. "Bo, you need to start going after girls your own age." Bolin winced - Mako had never quite been convinced that Bolin's preference to men was anything more than a phase - but pressed on.  

"Uh, yeah, well, the thing is…I've been having trouble in his class, and so he offered to privately tutor me. And I dunno what to do, I mean...I do need help, but..."  

"Well, that's simple. Don't go." Mako sounded annoyed. "The more time you spend with him, the more you nurture these unnatural feelings, the more likely it is that he'll find out. Best case scenario, he rejects you. Worst case, he takes advantage of you and you get expelled. Is that what you want?"  

"N-no…" Bolin could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. His brother could be so harsh when he wanted to be. "B-but, I mean, he's not a bad guy, I don't think he'd do something like that."

"You don't know what these perverted old men are capable of, Bolin! You're still just a kid!" He heard Mako sigh on the other end. "Look, I'm not saying this to hurt you, Bo. I just think that this can only lead to you getting hurt. Do you understand?"

  "Yes," Bolin mumbled miserably. He just wanted to get out of this conversation as quickly as possible. "Look, I'm gonna go, okay? I'll talk to you later." Before Mako could even say goodbye, he hung up, burying his face in his pillow and trying not to cry.

  Stupid Mako. He was always saying stuff like that. Always bossing him around like he knew what was best for him. So what if he was two years older? He didn't know everything. He didn't even support his sexuality, something he continued to question every day because of his brother's insistence on it being just a phase.  

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine breasts. He'd seen them in porno films before, big round ones with large areolas. But those sagged and he didn't like the way they were shaped. So he tried to imagine the little perky ones, but those also felt wrong. They were okay to look at, but they didn't exactly do anything for him.  Then he imagined Iroh, the way his muscles stretched underneath his sweater, the way his mouth turned up into a tight smile, his chiseled jaw and rigid figure, and he felt a stir in his pants. Oh, he definitely preferred men. Whenever he doubted that fact, all he had to do was think of Iroh and the tent in his pants made his preference clear real quick. He reached for the lotion under his bed and slicked up his palm, then slid it into his pants to slowly stroke himself as he conjured up illusions of what might it be like to feel the muscles hiding underneath that burgundy sweater, and what it might be like to taste his pale skin.  

He came pretty embarrassingly quickly, like he almost always did when it came to Iroh. It had been like that for two whole school years. No way this was just some crush like Mako said. It had to be love, right? Real love, like the kind they talked about in romance novels and love songs.  

Bolin didn't particularly want to do anything after that, but he managed to finish his homework and eat dinner (noodles, his favorite) and get into the shower just in time to get to bed early. As he was crawling in between the sheets, damp and still slightly miserable, he caught sight of the phone still sitting on his bedside table. He hesitated, then reached for it, dialing another familiar number.  

"Hey, Korra? It's Bo. I'm in."

  ------  

Bolin walked up the pathway to Iroh's house, nervous and yet also excited. This was the first time he'd ever get to see the inside, get to see how the Hotman spent his personal life. The outside was nothing remarkable, a plain yellow one-story house with a white trim and a cute little garden bed out front, currently sitting empty under an inch of snow, surrounded by a small, wrought-iron gate. 'His wife must have made that,' he thought, unprepared for the wave of jealousy that crashed over him. He distracted himself by knocking on the door.  

Iroh opened the door and Bolin's mouth nearly dropped at the sight. He was dressed in a simple grey tank top and jeans, something he'd never seen his prim and proper teacher wear. The tank revealed so many muscles on his arms and chest, while clinging to so many more underneath.  

"Good morning, Bolin," Iroh said cheerfully, beckoning him inside. "Come on inside." Bolin obeyed speechlessly, shuffling into the other's house and shedding his coat at the blast of heat that greeted him. No wonder the older man was so sparsely dressed.

  "Do you like hot cocoa?" The teenager nodded mutely and followed Iroh into the kitchen like an obedient puppy. There was a kettle of milk heating up on the stove, so Iroh told Bolin to sit at a small table in the corner of the kitchen. A few minutes later, a steaming mug of cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top was set in front of him.  

"No marshmallows?" he asked weakly, trying and failing to make it sound like a joke. He sipped the warm drink and got whipped cream all over his nose.

  Iroh chuckled and leaned forward with a napkin to wipe the teenager off. "I like cream better. It tastes smoother, in my opinion."

  "Oh…" Bolin flushed a bit and glanced around the house, looking for signs of another human being in the house. Shoes, maybe, or pictures on the wall. "We're not going to disturb your wife, are we?"  

Iroh seemed surprised. "I'm not married," he said with an almost wistful smile. "I'm only 27. There's plenty of time in my life for that."  

Bolin mentally calculated their age difference. Eleven years. That was no small thing. Even he knew that. But hearing he wasn't married gave him hope.

  "No girlfriend?" Bolin sipped his cocoa and tried to put on his flirtiest smile, which somehow ended up looking like a pained grimace. It didn't help that he'd managed to get whipped cream on his nose once again. "You're a handsome guy, I find that hard to believe."  

"Well, believe it," Iroh said, stifling a laugh. "You're looking at a full-blown bachelor."

  "No kidding?" Inside, Bolin cheered. He'd show his brother wrong, right here and now. He set down his mug in front of him and looked Iroh straight in the eyes, trying to calm his jangling nerves. "What about a boyfriend?"

  Iroh looked startled. "I…I don't think this is appropriate…"

  "All you have to do is say no."

  "No, all I have to do is end this conversation." The older man stood. "I'll go get the books so we can work. It's what you came for, not this…interrogation." He strode out of the room and Bolin blanched. He hadn't meant to make his teacher mad. He scrambled to his feet to follow him into the living room.  

"I'm…I'm sorry," he stammered to the older man's back. He seemed to be pointedly ignoring the teen. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I was just asking." The teenager rubbed his arm uncomfortably and stared down at his shoes. "I won't tell anyone, you know, I…I am too. So I won't tell. I promise."

  Iroh turned to him, his expression infinitely more gentle. "No, I'm sorry. I overreacted. Please accept my apology, Bolin, I didn't mean to snap at you like that."

  "It was nothing…" Bolin scuffed his shoe on the floor. His fake confidence had shattered in the blink of an eye and his nervousness had returned tenfold. "So, um, let's…study."  

For the next two hours, he and Iroh talked about nothing but history. Bolin tried his hardest to listen, but every now and then his attention would wander, to admire the older man's abs, or the way his ass looked in those jeans. He couldn't help it. He didn't want to fail, but it was so hard to concentrate with the object of his desire right in front of him.

  "Bolin! Please pay attention!" The teenager snapped to attention for the umpteenth time, noting his teacher's exasperated expression. "There's no point in private tutoring if you're going to space out just as much as you do in class."

  "I'm sorry," Bolin said meekly. Iroh shook his head and scooted closer with the book.  

"Here. Read along with me." Bolin was nodding, but barely listening. This close, he could smell the damp sweat coming off his skin. Normally, like in the locker room after gym, the smell of sweat reeked. But here, it was the most heavenly thing Bolin had ever smelled. He felt like he could live forever on the smell of Iroh alone.   He didn't realize how close he'd leaned to the older man until Iroh shot him a questioning glance. Bolin glanced up. So close. His lips were so close, so pink and inviting. As if watching himself from a dream, he felt himself tilt his head and close those few extra inches to press his lips against the older man's.  

Iroh froze, but Bolin kept on going, wrapping his arms tightly around the other man's muscular shoulders and pressing little kisses against Iroh's unresponsive mouth. Even without a response, this was still the most amazing kiss he'd ever had. The scent of Iroh surrounded him like a haze, his heat rolling off him in waves to seep into Bolin's body. He was going to enjoy this until Iroh came to his senses and pushed him away, because chances were he was never going to get to do this again.

  Then a funny thing happened. He felt Iroh's arms snake around his waist to pull him closer, and suddenly his teacher was kissing him back. His tongue snuck out to prod at Bolin's lips, and his mouth opened, more from surprise than knowing what he was doing. Iroh clearly did, though, and he couldn't help the moan when their tongues twined together. Even the taste of him was heavenly, mixed with the sweet scent of hot chocolate and cream that even now he could clearly taste.  

Bolin found himself in the other's lap, pressed flush against those muscles he'd been admiring just moments before. Just this got him excited, a fact which was obvious by the tent in his pants and the way his legs were trembling. He was in absolute euphoria.

  At least, he was until he felt the older man's hand on his thigh.  

"Whoa, whoa, wait, stop!" Bolin suddenly jumped off a surprised Iroh's lap, his face completely red. "I'm like…a total, total virgin, dude, I don't wanna do any of that stuff…" Mako's lectures about being taken advantage of, his nagging and warning, were suddenly all he could think about. He didn't want that. He didn't want this. Not now, not here.   

"Bolin, I…"

  "Oh geez, Mako was right, I should have listened to him. I'm so stupid, stupid hormones…"  

"Bolin." Iroh was suddenly in front of him, looking concerned, but pointedly avoided touching him. "I'm sorry. This is my fault, not yours. I suspected that you had a crush on me, and I didn't...I didn't think about the consequences for you. I didn't mean to…"

  "Take advantage of me?" Bolin glanced up meekly.  

"Yes." Iroh sighed. "I forgot about your age for a moment. I'm so used to dealing with…older partners. Please know, I would never do something you didn't want me to do."

  Bolin nodded. He believed Iroh. The older man had stopped when he told him to stop, and really hadn't gone very far to begin with. Anyway, it was Bolin who had initiated it. "I won't…tell anyone?" he offered. He had been shaken by the experience, but it had definitely been exciting. He took a hesitant step closer to his teacher. "I...like you."

 Iroh chuckled, somewhat strangled. "Yes. I know." He awkwardly glanced away. "You know we can't do that again, right? You're my student, and underage. It's not right."

  "I know…" Bolin bit his lip. "But what if…what if when I'm not your student? What then?"

  "When you're not my student?" Iroh smiled sadly. "I appreciate the offer, but your graduation is nearly two years away yet. There's no need to wait for that. I'm nearly twice your age, you know, and there's plenty of people your own age to date."

  "I've already waited two years," Bolin said with a shaky smile. "I think I can wait another two." He hesitantly reached out to take Iroh's hand. "And maybe…until then…we can get to know each other better?"

  Iroh seemed surprised. "You're serious?" he said uncertainly.

  "Definitely." Bolin leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Iroh's lips, a chaste peck that was a mere shadow of its predecessor, but which carried so much more promise. "So what do you say?"  

Iroh smiled hesitantly, then squeezed his hand back. "I say…it's a date."


End file.
